54. Sage
FIFTY-FOUR
SAGE
“You’re humming,” Jamie says.
I look up from the coffee I’m pouring. “I am not.”
“You are. You’ve been humming for the last ten minutes. Something by Queen, I think. Possibly ‘Don’t Stop Me Now.’” He tilts his head, studying me over his laptop in an annoyingly perceptive way. “Sweetheart, you look different.”
“I washed my hair and I have mascara on.”
“No. It’s more than that. You look happy, Sage. It’s alarming. Should I be concerned? Did you join a cult? You joined a cult.”
“I didn’t join a cult.”
“That’s exactly what someone who joined a cult would say.”
I top off his mug and move to the next table, where one of our regulars, Frank, is working on his second cup and his daily crossword. He slides the newspaper toward me without looking up.
“Seven across,” he says. “Six letters. ‘One who serves.’”
“Waiter,” I say.
He squints at the grid. Writes it in. “Huh. That works.”
I move through the diner with the lightness of a woman who has slept through three nights in a row, which in my world is practically a spa retreat.
The sun is coming through the front windows in thick, golden bars.
Danny, the cook, is in a good mood, which means the specials are edible.
The Tuesday Mom Squad is in their usual spot, and one of them actually smiled at me today.
I smiled back without calculating the exit routes first.
Something's different. Not dramatically.
Not the kind of overnight transformation that happens in movies where the heroine gets a haircut and suddenly her life makes sense.
More like a tectonic plate nudging half an inch to the left—invisible on the surface, but everything built on top of it feels the change.
The texts are still coming. Milo says the route is still bouncing, but he hasn’t cracked it yet.
“Give me another week,” he said this morning through a mouthful of cereal. “Maybe two. But I’m close.”
In the meantime, I’ve kept my promise. Every message from a Brock number is caught and routed to all six phones.
I don’t delete the original. I don’t hide how it lands.
Holden logs it. Eli analyzes the language.
Milo tears apart the route. Knox stares at each one like he could trace the sender through sheer force of will.
And then we move on, together, which is the part that still feels new—the together. The not-carrying-it-alone. The part where I’m one of them instead of being watched by them.
“Earth to Sage.” Jamie waves a hand in front of my face. “You just poured Frank’s coffee into the sugar bowl.”
I look down. I have, in fact, been pouring coffee directly into the sugar bowl for the last several seconds. Frank is watching with the resigned expression of a man who’s seen everything.
“I’ll get you a new sugar bowl, Frank.”
“Take your time,” he says. “I’ve been meaning to cut back.”
I dump the ruined sugar, replace the bowl, and slide back into Jamie’s orbit. He’s closed his laptop, which means he’s done pretending to work and ready to give me his full attention, which is both flattering and slightly terrifying.
“So,” he says. “Amy told me all about pajama night. Are we doing this or not?”
“We’re doing it.”
“This Saturday?”
“This Saturday. Amy’s and my apartment.”
“We’re still calling it that? I thought you were fully loved up and moved in with your harem.”
“I’m staying at Holden’s for the time being. But nothing’s been made permanent there so I don’t want to assume—plus I’m still paying rent.”
“Fair. But for what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure your guys are keeping you.”
My cheeks heat and my smile gets even wider. “We’re supposed to be discussing pajama night, Jamie. Stop trying to derail me and squeeze info out of me about my sex life.”
He laughs. “Guilty. And also not sorry. I’m fascinated. Like, are they going to be there on Saturday, lurking in the hallway in matching tactical gear? Or will they get in the jammies and join in?”
“Oh my God. Could you imagine Knox in a onesie and a facemask?”
“I can. And I desperately want to be there to see it.”
“Sorry to disappoint. But they won’t be there. I’m negotiating terms.”
“Terms.” He grins. “You make it sound like a hostage situation.”
“You haven’t met Knox during a negotiation. The man treats a trip to the grocery store like a covert operation.”
“Last time I saw Knox, he stared at me for forty-five seconds without blinking. I thought he was going to eat me.”
“That’s how he says hello.”
“Terrifying. I loved it.” Jamie takes a sip of his coffee. “Seriously though, if your men want to join in, I really wouldn’t hate seeing them all in their pajamas—or without them.”
“Stop!” A giggle escapes at the thought as I shake my head. “They’re banned for the night. That was the deal—no surprise boyfriends, no random check-ins. Just me and my besties.”
Jamie lets out a melodramatic moan. “Rude. I mean, love you, bestie. But do you know how long I’ve waited to see Eli in lounge pants? Or Holden in something other than business casual? You’re denying me basic human rights. I had so many hopes and dreams.”
I laugh so hard my stomach hurts. The sound surprises me because it comes so easy now.
A few months ago, laughing felt like a performance.
Something I assembled with the right muscles in the right sequence and presented to the world as proof that I was fine.
Now it just happens. Without planning. Without the quick internal check of is this appropriate, am I safe, will someone hear me and decide I’m too happy and take it away.
“You’ll survive. Promise.” I move away to check on my other tables.
The only part I’m not telling Jamie is that Holden will be sitting in the parking lot of my building for the entire night.
Not because the guys tried to ban pajama night or wrap me in bubble wrap.
They didn’t. We negotiated the same way we negotiate everything now: I get to sit in my apartment behind a locked door with my friends.
I haven’t spent a night there since the noose.
And it’s time I get to reclaim some part of what’s mine.
We can’t keep relying on Eli’s contact to watch over Amy.
And honestly, I miss my own bed. So I get one night of normalcy with no surprise check-ins or a broody man set up in the corner of the room.
But they get one person close enough to respond if I need him. And we have a signal.
Two flicks of the living room lights. That’s it. That’s the whole system.
They know how badly I want one night of being a regular girl with her friends, and they’re giving it to me even though the “Brock” messages are coming faster every week.
The newest one arrived an hour ago. Milo’s catch put it in the group chat before I even opened it.
brOCK:
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID. I KNOW WHO YOU’RE WITH. BETTER HOPE THEY’RE AS GOOD AT PROTECTING YOU AS KILLING ME.
MILO:
Logged. Route’s still bouncing. Keep working, kitten. We’ve got eyes on you and you’re safe.
So that’s what I do. I keep pouring. Keep smiling. Keep moving. There’s a perverse comfort in not letting the fear repaint my life again. I’ve already repainted too many times.
If Brock—well, whoever is pretending to be Brock, or whoever the fuck it actually is—wants me to be afraid, they can eat shit.
I’m not hiding anymore. Milo will probably catch them before they get close enough to try anything.
Failing that, I’ll stab them until they stop moving and then I’ll fuck Holden in their blood.
Jamie stops by the counter on his way out. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re doing better. The last few weeks, you’ve seemed more . . . you. Whatever that means.”
“It means I’m sleeping and eating and only having one existential crisis per day instead of six.”
“Progress.”
I lean across the counter and hug him impulsively. His arms close around me for a beat before he gently pushes me back.
“Get back to work, bitch.”
“Bossy.”
“You love it.” He grins. “I’ll see you Saturday. Let’s pray Amy finds those face masks that won’t dissolve our skin.”
I press my palms together and look skyward. “Please no dissolving.”
The rest of my shift is textbook. I refill, I smile, I leave work with the same number of bodily fluids inside my skin as I started, which is all you can really ask. Amy texts me about face masks.
Amy:
I’m not kidding, the koi collagen ones look like ghost horror but it says our skin will GLOW
And once about pajamas.
Amy:
Remember: no holes, no stains, nothing from the boys’ side of the closet. I want maximum girl energy
Me:
I think technically we could treat Milo as one of the girls.
Amy:
Milo is a simulation of a human built by aliens who only ever watched terrible Disney sitcoms.
Which, honestly, is not far off.
Knox is in his truck across the street when I walk out of the diner. I can see the outline of him through the tinted glass. I give a small wave. I know he saw it even if he doesn’t wave back. Knox sees everything.
I cross the street and climb into the passenger side. The truck smells like black coffee and leather and that particular Knox scent that I’ve never been able to identify—something clean and warm underneath the severity, like cedar that doesn’t want you to know it’s cedar.
“Hey, Knoxie,” I say.
“Fury.” He starts the engine and pulls into the street, traveling the opposite way to Holden’s place.
“Are we not going home?”
“No.”
“Are we going to the club?”
“No.”
“A stakeout? Please say stakeout. I’ve always wanted to do a stakeout.”
“No.”
“Knox. Where are we going?”
He checks his mirrors. I wait. Knox doesn’t do information on demand. Knox does information when Knox is ready, and the timeline is his, and if you push him, he just gets quieter, which is a feat given that his baseline is near-silence.
“We’re having dinner at Milo’s mom’s place.”
Every molecule of blood in my body evacuates my face.
“What?”
“Gloria. The dads are making dinner. We’re expected at six.”